🥊 Raya vs Ramsdale: Royal Rumble

What are the main talking points from Gameweek 5?

Too many cooks (good goalkeepers) spoil the broth (defensive cohesion)?

Plenty of talking points from this week’s action, with unprecedented late drama and debates on whether goalkeepers should legally be exempt from being exposed to the rotation humiliation suffered by their outfield teammates.

Here’s my round-up of the fixtures from Gameweek 5 of the Premier League (spoiler: I don’t talk about either of the games from Sunday, a.k.a. the most boring pair of matches I’ve ever seen).

Subscribe to get weekly content straight to your inbox:

---

Game of the weekend 🙌

Does Ten Hag have credit in the bank to continue at Old Trafford?

Manchester United vs Brighton

Wowzers. Is this the most unsurprising ‘underdog’ victory I’ve ever seen? Roberto De Zerbi astounds me for his ability to throw together another combination of rogue players, and it not making the slightest difference. Pervis Estupinan, hattrick hero Evan Ferguson, and Billy Gilmour all dropped out the starting XI, yet their replacements still tore United apart.

Granted, the red side of Manchester are not the imperious opposition they once were. Plus, a lack of available wingers is heaping onto their existing midfield crisis, forcing Ten Hag into playing a midfield diamond. As a result, his players looked lost at sea. But let’s not beat around the bush – United were abject, woeful.

Brighton found it all a bit too easy against an abysmal Manchester United.

Tariq Lamptey took full advantage of the available space, and ran rings around a hapless backline. But that backline is shockingly bad. Perennial whinger Bruno Fernandes maybe for once had a point when screaming at his teammates – how did he end up covering at CB for Brighton’s third goal?

All this underlines how toxicity reigns supreme at Old Trafford – Greenwood, Sancho, Antony and now the fans booing Martial’s introduction. It’s all falling apart, but it remains unclear how Ten Hag plans to arrest the fall. His post-match comments were downright bizarre and while it’s clear there’s a professionalism problem among the squad, some tactical responsibility must fall on the head coach for failing to improve a team over the last year.

If only United weren’t hamstrung by not being able to invest in players! This is a of course a joke - see Brighton’s £16.2m total cost for their starting team vs the £170m+ United spent this summer alone. Need we remember, Diogo Dalot alone cost £20m. There’s something seriously wrong at that club.

So Brighton are great and United are on the verge of freefall – doesn’t that sound familiar? At least Rashford et al. don’t have to play one of the best teams in Europe this week ... better start looking for taxis for Casemiro, I imagine he’s already planning his tactical first half red card so he doesn’t have to mark Harry Kane.

---

Tactical trends 📊

Was Raya’s appearance as simple as indecision over Arsenal’s #1 keeper?

Raya vs Ramsdale

Mikel Arteta’s decision to change his goalkeepers has caused partisan debate: “this house believes inconsistent goalkeeper selection screws up a back four’s fluidity”. While it’s true goalkeepers don’t need resting in the same way as a box-to-box midfielder might, the Guardian’s Jonathan Wilson has done some stellar analysis that gives insight into this tactical tweak.

Sean Dyche’s victory in his first match as Everton manager last season was a result of Ramsdale’s indecision. Tarkowski scored from a corner, Arsenal lost the game and subsequently suffered – teams targeted this perceived weakness, scored notably more goals from set pieces in the latter half of the season, and Arsenal ultimately lost the league.

Raya, although shorter than Ramsdale, is statistically more confident attacking the ball when it’s launched into the box. Admittedly, in this game Raya was hardly tested and only had to deal with one Everton corner. But the point remains that a proactive tactical change from Arteta proves he’s no slouch, and that there’s reasoning behind the apparent madness.

Both Ramsdale and Raya are world class keepers, but do offer different strengths between the sticks – I don’t see how, assuming both players remain happy, this can be a bad thing for Arsenal going forward.

Richarlison was the difference in Spurs’ win over The Blades

The Late Late Show (thankfully, without James Corden)

Spurs and Villa left it late (and I mean LATE) to snatch victory against Sheffield United and Crystal Palace. In fact, 16 of the 24 goals from this weekend were scored after the 75^th minute, which to me is a great advert for the wildly long periods of added time. It shouldn’t be a bugbear for players or managers – if the game of football is 90 minutes long, the argument of ‘it’s never really been 90 minutes’ is not a good enough excuse. Buckle down, keep your concentration and stop getting booked for time wasting after 11 minutes (@ James Trafford).

I want to praise Richarlison here. I spoke last week about how his spot might be at risk given Brennan Johnson’s arrival, and that was even before a challenging trip to Brazil and back. His mental resolve, then, to jump on the pitch at 1-0 down, score a crucial equaliser and then set up Kulusevski in the 100^th minute should be congratulated. I usually find the bloke thoroughly dislikeable, but his admission of his struggles and defiant contribution to his team’s victory has won him back a heap of respect from me. He may not yet regain his starting position, but it’s just as useful to make match shaping contributions from the bench.

---

Player of the week 🎖

This new section will look weekly at an outstanding performer that’s caught my eye. It won’t always be the top scorer (there’s only so many times I can pair the words ‘Haaland’ and ‘good’), but hopefully will still be interesting.

The confidence to hit the griddy when you’ve just equalised - imagine if they’d lost.

Jeremy Doku

West Ham held their own for the first half against the defending champions, but in the end couldn’t handle the new kid on the block. And my god, Jeremy Doku is a scary prospect. His insane close control is compounded by his finishing. Even considering a great performance by World Cup winner Alphonse Areola, he didn’t get close to Doku’s early second half goal.

City were already the team to beat, and now Guardiola has got a plan F for when A through E don’t work – give it Doku and let him scare the crap out of a wing back by running directly at him. It ended up being the turning point on Saturday, and will cause many a manager sleepless nights this season and beyond. Even if you somehow manage to shut down the tiki-taka and halt the superhuman Haaland, you’ve now got a ‘winger winger winger’ to deal with too. It’s just not fair, is it?

---

Thanks as always for bothering to read my Substack, I really really appreciate it. This week’s FPL corner chats about wildcards and what I’m coining the ‘Chelsea conundrum’– get access to those tips by subscribing to the paid content.

See you all next week! x